Lots 0f A muscaria and A  virosa here. There is or was a market for the A muscaria. It is used in the perfume industry
I found some lobsters in the White mtns. Read up on them and discovered that the fungus also attacks some poisonous mushrooms  so I pitched them.

You are a brave man!

even easier to be dead from eating the wrong mushroom.

Anything less than 100% certainty, is too much doubt for me.

Think I read the bad news concerning lobster musrooms   in "mushrooms demystified" . I'll take a look

IN National Audubon Society Field Guide To Mushrooms  it says that it is the lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum) that causes unpalatable Lactarius and Russula into choice edibles. I f you cannot positively id the host,  avoid it because it could potentially parasitise a poisonous species.

Just saying 

So this question on lobster mushrooms led much further afield than I expected. I started out posting on a popular mushroom forum and recieved a few responses. Basically the answer was we don't know, we have heard the same thing but no one knows of it actually happening. 

I then asked a doctor of Mycology from the University of Oregon. He was unable to find any such cases of lobster mushrooms parasitizing toxic species and poisoning the person eating it. Though he did cite a few cases in the last 30 years of the fungus hypomyces lactifluorum (the fungus that parasitizes other species to become lobster mushrooms) causes minor issues. He did not specify what issues exactly. And this was with no mention of the host mushroom which is what we are wondering about here. He gave me a few leads to check and suggested I contact a Dr. Michael Beug.

Dr. Beug is the head of the Toxicology committee of the North American Mycological Association. He is well respected in his field and keeps detailed records on all reported mushroom poisonings in North America.  If anyone knows of a specific case of a lobster mushroom actually poisoning someone it would be him.

His response is as follows, "While said to be possible - I have no such cases. The one lobster poisoning in my database was due to an allergic reaction."

So it appears that no such poisoning is on record, ever. At least, the experts on the subject are unaware of any. Despite the countless numbers of lobster mushrooms eaten each year.  In researching this I read there was some evidence that the parasite fungus is extremely picky on the type of Russula or Lactarius it chooses which may account for a lack of any evidence of poisonings. I can say, for myself personally, I will be trying them. Without evidence of actual poisonings it seems that this very well could be a case of adding a warning to something just to cover all possibilites. Perhaps as a way of guarding against law suits. Just a thought. We will likely never know.

I am no expert on them, but I've read that the lobster fungus can drop white or clear spores but are very difficult to gather in a typical spore print. The host does not drop any spores though.

Very possible. If you dig it up carefully it may have an egg like sac that the stipe (stem) is growing from. You need more info than a picture to reliably identify most mushrooms. It goes without saying that nothing featured on this thread should be eaten without it being identified by an expert. Mushroom poisoning is a very slow, painful death. And although there are relatively few deadly poisonous mushrooms, its safest to assume they are all deadly until you know otherwise.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, I worry some of our younger members will become too brave reading this thread. That being said, Aminita would be my first guess. I have a few guesses on the species but I will hold back unless I know.  There are something like 600 different species in the genus. I don't know most of them at a glance. One more reason I don't eat them.